AG: I wrote GYNX for so many reasons. Partly to speculate – what would it take to achieve a rape-free world? Partly to stake out space for women in theater – because as we know, theater is historically male-dominated. And partly for catharsis: I had just cut contact with some fringe feminist circles I’d been part of, and on top of that I was between jobs, so I had a lot of free time to think about how I wanted to redefine myself, my politics, my career and my artwork. It was a perfect storm for creating something new and meaningful. But at the same time, writing GYNX was also a casual decision. I’m a curious person. I love trying new things, and I realized I’d never written a play before. So after all of these factors came together, I kinda shrugged and went, “I’m gonna write a dark comedy about castrating rapists. Because why not?”

Hey lovelings, I’ve got wonderful news! My upcoming play, GYNX, is starting to get some press. Please check out my interview with Feminist Current, in which I talk about the challenges of being a female playwright, the state of modern feminism, and the necessity of rape-revenge stories like GYNX:

GYNX is a story about women who reclaim the streets from the men who’ve attempted to silence and erase them. So, not only is the process of producing GYNX literally challenging the erasure of women in the arts, but it’s also metaphorically challenging the erasure of women in the world at large.

“Radical feminism is about exposing, understanding and challenging male supremacy. The ultimate goal is to liberate women from patriarchy, not to equalize us with males.

There is an important distinction that needs to be made here. Male power does not come out of nowhere. It is an institutional force, manufactured through an intricate self-feeding web of domination/subjugation-based relations, and maintained with weapons such as war, poverty, and what Andrea Dworkin called “sexual terrorism.”

Women should not want equality to this degree of violence. We should want liberation from it.“

I had tried everything to make myself feel better in the aftermath of that nightmare – “happy pills,” self-injury, meditation, support groups, even crystal therapy – but the one thing I had not tried yet was writing about it. The abuse had made me afraid to do the one thing I’ve always been confident doing, because the entire relationship relied on my abuser speaking over me and drowning out my voice. That’s when I knew that the only way to heal would be to reclaim my words.